Too Great a Burden
by INMH
Summary: For the love bingo challenge, prompt "Indifference". Elijah prods his father for his opinion on Klaus.


Too Great a Burden

**Rating:** PG/K+

**Genre:** Drama/Family

**Summary:** For the love_bingo challenge, prompt "Indifference". Elijah prods his father for his opinion on Klaus.

**Author's Note:** KFFFF, I'M MAKING THEM SO SQUISHY-SOFT. SHAME ON ME. SHAME.

**Disclaimer:** I don't own The Vampire Diaries. It belongs to L.J. Smith/The CW.

()()

Elijah found his father (or perhaps vice-versa) three times following his split with Klaus in 1492.

The first meeting ended with Elijah storming off in the kind of temper that was common to just about anyone except him (he was his mother's cool-headed child through and through). The second meeting had ended slightly more amiably, the two parting ways quietly and without issue.

This was the third meeting, in the Windy City amidst Prohibition insanity and gang violence.

"You cut your hair." Mikael noted by way of greeting. He didn't even seem to look over his shoulder as Elijah appeared in the doorway of his hotel room.

"So did you. Nice accent, by the way." Elijah remarked, and there may have been a hint of humor in Mikael's eyes. The man had mellowed considerably over the last thousand years.

"What are you doing here, Elijah?"

His eldest shrugged, and Elijah went through great pains to make sure that his expression was completely neutral, unreadable. "Passing through. I'd heard Chicago had grown rather exciting in recent years."

Something in Mikael's eyes flickered, and Elijah knew that he was looking for deception in his son's face. Elijah had mastered not being an open book of emotion, but knew that if anyone could tell what was going on inside his head, it would be his father.

And Mikael did not fail to disappoint.

"You heard that Niklaus and Rebekah were in town."

"I didn't say that."

Mikael gave him a wry look and turned back towards the desk he was standing in front of. Elijah peered around and saw that there were a few daggers and wooden stakes of various shapes and sizes, mostly those that could be concealed easily upon Mikael's person. The daggers, he was certain, were silver.

Elijah gave up the act and sighed. "I suppose that's why you're here as well, father?" Mikael twitched slightly, and in his pondering as to what it was in that sentence that might have caused that reaction, Elijah realized that in their first encounter following the split of their family, he'd scathingly called his father by his given name. The second meeting, Elijah could not recall addressing Mikael in any way that required a noun or pronoun.

It had been almost a thousand years since he'd called Mikael 'father'. Elijah was surprised at just how _sad_ he suddenly felt about that.

"You suppose right." Mikael responded, keeping his back to Elijah under the pretense of arranging and cleaning the weapons. However long Elijah had gone without calling him father, Mikael clearly still had a father's instincts, because he predicted Elijah's next question as easily as he had when they were human. "And no, I don't know where he is. I would suspect that he's fled."

"After discovering that you were in town?" Mikael glanced over his shoulder, and Elijah could see some confusion. He hesitated, debating about whether or not he should part with this information, and then elaborated: "Niklaus is… Concerned that you might locate him."

Mikael faced the desk again, but his hands only toyed with the weapons. He wasn't concerned (or maybe the question had distracted him) with the pretense anymore. "Is he, now?"

"He is."

Mikael's posture and tone were distinct, but God help him, Elijah could _not_ figure out what it meant. Mikael had been impulsive, aggressive, prideful, but again, in moments when anger had not consumed him, he'd been difficult to read. The maturity of almost a thousand years had made him even better at it.

The relationship between Mikael and Klaus had always been strained. On one hand, there were times when Elijah felt that Mikael was too much of a disciplinarian and not enough of a father, even for the parenting standards of the time. But at the same time, biological son or not, Klaus was his father's hot-headed son, and his equally impulsive and sometimes downright reckless ways had often encouraged criticism rather than praise and love.

And as much as Elijah wanted to believe that Mikael loved Niklaus as much as he'd loved him, Finn, Kol, Rebekah and Henrick, he wasn't certain if the revelation of Esther's infidelity and Klaus's true parentage had severed whatever paternal sentiments still existed or not.

Why he felt he needed to confirm either option, Elijah had no idea.

"Though I think I might be waiving the propriety that exists between father and son…" Elijah began delicately, and that seemed to catch Mikael's attention sufficiently enough to cause him to turn around again. "…I must ask, father: What exactly are your… Feelings towards Niklaus?"

"Feelings? Why do you ask?"

"Your reaction was not one that I was expecting." Elijah was careful not to indicate what kind of reaction he'd been expecting. Only when speaking to his parents had Elijah ever felt unsure and insecure in his words. The fear of sounding foolish was ridiculous, but ever-present in the part of him that was still human and still concerned with his father's opinion of him.

Mikael observed Elijah for a moment, and their eyes met, and Elijah honestly had no idea what Mikael was looking for in his face (because Mikael had completely mastered the art of masking his emotions). At best, he would simply answer the question. At worst, he might suspect that Elijah had rejoined with Klaus and was maybe scouting for any useful information.

"I am indifferent."

Elijah squinted at him. His father was not looking at him again, and if he couldn't read the man's face, he certainly couldn't read his back. "Indifferent?" He repeated, as though he wasn't certain that he'd heard correctly. "You are indifferent towards Niklaus?"

"You sound confused."

"I am."

Mikael shot another brief gaze over his shoulder, and somehow he managed to avoid looking directly at Elijah as he did. "And why is that?"

"He killed mother."

"Correct."

"And you…" Elijah rarely looked (or felt, for that matter) this confused. "…You are indifferent towards him."

"Yes."

"You don't hate him?"

Mikael must have sensed that that was the point Elijah had been driving at, because he continued to keep his back to his son. "It's not that simple."

"He killed mother, turned most of us against you, and has been generally spreading destruction, fear and evil amongst human, vampire and werewolf-kind for the last millennium. You have sworn to carve his heart out of his chest. Forgive me father, but that sounds like a rather passionate hatred."

"You don't understand."

"No, I don't."

"And you wouldn't, Elijah, because you are not a father." Mikael said quietly, continuing to polish the knives and not look his eldest (living) in the eye. "You have not watched a woman you love give birth to your children, whom you have then raised to adulthood and protected throughout their lives."

Elijah was suddenly hit with the sense that he was experiencing one of Those Moments. The moment when you realized that your father was imparting some very deep knowledge unto you, and that he was doing so in a way that was probably making him extremely uncomfortable. Mikael was not a man that had coddled his children and bandied the word and sentiment of love about carelessly; he'd shown his love by making them tough enough to withstand the hardships of the world.

Elijah had understood that. He'd understood that when his father snapped at him to not go too close to the edge of the cliff, it was because he was afraid that Elijah would fall over and die. Klaus had never been able to wrap his mind around that. But then, his relationship with their parents had been quite different than Elijah and their siblings' relationships with them.

Elijah wasn't certain how to feel about this.

"Then explain it to me, father. Because I cannot reconcile how you can muster the fortitude to kill Niklaus without despising him."

"I will kill him because it has to happen." Mikael said it as though he'd said it a thousand times before. "Niklaus has become a blight upon humanity. I don't care to know what would happen if he were ever to achieve his goal. But innocent people would die in the process, and I would like to stop that from happening."

Whatever had driven their father as a human, pride or aggression or love, he had always been a protector. That much Elijah knew. Still…

"But…?"

"But regardless of-" Elijah didn't have to see Mikael's face to know that a sneer had just jumped across it. "…Regardless of who… _Sired_… Niklaus… I raised him. He is my child." He didn't continue, and Elijah was silent for a good five minutes before finishing the thought.

"And you love him?"

Mikael ceased all movements, and to Elijah's surprise, the man's shoulders seemed to slouch slightly. "I did once."

"Not anymore."

"I don't know. Love is not so easily shaken." His eyes flickered in Elijah's direction, and once again he seemed to know precisely what his son was thinking. "Even for me."

"I never said that you did."

Mikael rolled his eyes away and said nothing more.

-End

I'm always surprised when Supernatural or Vampire Diaries stories come out as PG-worthy. I rate them all PG-13 by default and then re-assess at the end if they should be bumped up or down. I was looking through this one and I'm like, "Okay, two homicidal vampires in the same room... And it's PG. Wow. How'd I manage that?" XD


End file.
